Coordinating towards higher values

Kudos for "Let's Lose"

"Let's Lose! Why rejecting practical solutions has kept the Libertarian Party in the political basement" by James Turbett, is one of the best editorial pieces I have read on a libertarian site in years. That it archives from Fall 2004 gives it even more gravitas, in my opinion.

Here we are, facing another odious election year with the same dreadful choices: The Marxist-Socialist Democratic Party vs. the Fascist-Imperialist Republican Party. The American people hate both parties and everything they stand for. Yet one of the two parties will win seats in Congress.

The Libertarian Party--as usual--will win nothing.

Despite the fact that libertarianism is actually becoming fashionable enough that people proclaim themeselves to be libertarian without the slightest clue to its meaning..the Libertarian Party continues to fail. It has existed in the body politic for 33 years and has accomplished nothing, because it has never won. One must win to achieve change in the political world. The pseudo-intellectual denizens of the Libertarian party are not at all unaware of this. Worse: They don't care.

Taking a cue from Turbett's article, I have to propose an obvious solution.

Solution: Create a new libertarian Third Party that has none of the intellectual baggage embraced by the old. A new party dedicated to getting elected, to embracing real solutions that decrease government authority, and to the goal of ruthlessly seizing power away from the hands of the federal government and turning it back to the citizenry.

Libertarian reaction: Disinterest. Because the old guard and the intellectual nucleus of the Libertarian Party would rather continue the process of being a party of principled losers.

That's exactly why the party must be blown apart and replaced with a new one. Until there is a new Third party that EFFECTIVELY implements libertarian ideas and does so with competitive aggression, libertarians will continue to float ineffectually on the stormy waves of our corrupted political system like a discarded cork.

Exactly what do we have to lose in taking an alternate course? Our usual 1/2 of one percent of the presidential popular vote?

“Lizard tails” are problems created by attempting to hide a problem from our view without actually changing the constraints that we face. The lizard tails must then be hidden by another cosmetic reform, which itself creates real problems.

"Being a superpower is expensive. Its not something we 'earn' or 'deserve' or are given by God. We actually have to pay for it. It costs billions in foreign aid, military and intelligence operations."

Tom Thrasher’s Weblog

by Tom Thrasher

The combination of militarized police responses to lawful demonstration, alienation of the community from the police, and a pattern of purposeful delays to regular investigations that the Ferguson incident remains emblematic of a deeply disturbing reality that our criminal justice system has ceased to apply a common set of rules to all people equally.